I can’t wait for this

Needs for the Rescue Center

Hey everyone. If you read my blog at all then you know I follow Lori and Licia’s blogs. These ladies help to run the Rescue Center & Medical Clinic in Haiti. They have another major shipment of supplies headed their way and have posted their needs on her blog.

If you could sponsor a palette, that would rock! You could sponsor a palette for $250.

She has also listed the needs of the Rescue Center & Medical Clinic. I thought that I would also list them for you. It is so easy to just pick a couple of things on this list and pick them up the next time you are at the grocery store. Take a look and see what you could do!

1. large safety pins

2. crib sheets

3. short-any size

4. sock-any size

5. boys and girls underware-any size

6. barretts

7. plastic pants (to put over cloth diapers)

8. baby shampoo, lotion, powder

9. hand santizer

10. bumbo seats

11. sippy cups

12. spoons

13. bowls

14. pens

15. sharpies

16. pillows

17. Q-tips

18. newborn clothes

19. any toys

20. shoes and sandles-any size

21. infant formula

22. baby food

23. baby cereal

24. twin mattress

25. shower curtains

26. small kids picnic tables

27. infant formula

For the Clinic….

*post-it notes
*notebooks
*white out
*paper clips
*index cards
*Sharpies
*razors
*folders
*hanging file folders
*envelopes
*ink – HP21 & HP22
*pens
*rubber bands
*calculators
*office chairs & stools
*staplers
*fans – any kind
*stethoscope
*blood pressure cuffs
*otoscope
*fetal doppler
*gloves
*syringes-1cc, 3cc
*ziplocs-any
*hand sanitizer
*gauze
*suture material
*foleys 14,16
*O2 SAT monitor
*nebulizer
*oxygen concentrator
*loose leaf notebook paper
*file cabinet-4 drawer, heavy-duty
*pen lights or flashlights
*braces & splints – wrist, finger, knee
*angiocaths-22g,24g,26g

For Community Group….
*chicken wire, feeding containers, etc – anything to raise chickens
*Any materials for sewing (for the sewing class) – sewing machines (electric and pedal), material, thread, straight pins, zippers, buttons, needles, measuring tape (in cm), scissors, rotary cutter, carbon paper, marking pens/colored pencils (red and blue), patters, etc.
*wheelbarrows
*shovels, garden tools

*5 gallon water cooler

*chairs

*garden hose

Would you like a magazine?

The Parker family is joyously  welcoming an addition to their family.  The boy is from a Rescue Center in Haiti. Adoption is expensive. So, they have chosen to sell magazines to help cover the costs. If you would like to renew or begin a subscription for a magazine, and the money go towards a great cause, go HERE.

Ultimate Air Dogs Cure Bad Day

Yesterday was a bad day. I am talking, bad. I won’t/can’t go into details, but at work and on the home front it just wasn’t good. More so the trouble came from work. I experienced being infuriated, discouraged, my feelings being really hurt, and nauseous all in  one day. It wasn’t fun.  But part of my day included going to a huge event here in town and spending hours there.  With thousands of people. Did I tell you I get claustrophobic in crowds now? It is not fun. And me being in an extremely bad mood did not make matters any better.

I thought the day was a wash (is that the way the saying goes?) until I stumbled upon these little guys. The Ultimate Air Dogs. I stood there for probably 30 minutes watching them and loved it. I immediately wanted to go home and start training Kansas (my dog whom I believe is a Border Collie/Jack Russell terrier mix). She would be perfect for it! Anyway, I just wanted to share with you a video. It is not from the show I saw, but it is the same company. I hope you enjoy!

Julie Roberts is SO Great!

My wedding photographer, Jule Roberts, saw on my blog that I am missing the days of wearing my wedding dress. So she put together a slide show of some of the pictures from my bridal portrait session. She is so sweet! She even added a song.

I know that I have posted my wedding pictures on here often, but I just love them! I told my mom when we were creating a budget for the wedding that besides leaving with a husband, the pictures are one of the most important things that I would take away. She was hesitant about focusing so much on the pictures, but afterwards was so thankful that we did. She has even said that she is going to pay for our kids to have pictures taken every three months of the first year of their life!! I am pretty excited about that too!

Now when I show my pictures to people, I always tell them how much I am happy with how they turned out. And then I add in that it is definitly Julie’s talent that makes them look so great. If you could see how many pictures didn’t look so great (b/c of things that I don’t like about myself, i.e. a profile shot) you would know that she has worked wonders with these! And, she learns what you like and don’t like in pictures and sticks with that. I do not like my profile shot. My nose is big and what my brother used to call a ski slope! So she works with that.

Ok, so I definitly encourage anyone to take a look at Julie’s work. I know so many people who have been SO happy with her product. And she is SO great to work with!

I also wanted to post on here the slide show that she made for me. I love this girl!

Go HERE for the slide show.

Labor of Love

Since I immediately posted on my blog after I introduced to you two new blogs, I wanted to post again mentioning one of them. You see, the author of this blog has been such a great person in my life. I met her when I moved to East Tennessee. She has been INCREDIBLY encouraging to me in these past few years. And I am not unique in this. She is encouraging to so many other women and has made it a mission in her life to be this way.

I wanted to go into more details on the purpose of her new blog. I have never been good at speaking for others, so I will let her (from an explanation she told to me) describe to you the purpose of Labor of Love.

“See…there are a couple of aspects of Labor of Love
1 is encouragement
1 is Life Purpose Coaching
1 is Doula (Birthing Coach)

I have not yet worked out how it will all work together under Labor of Love yet

And the blog is the beginning…it is soley for encouragement in being authentic with one another and with God…it will evolve as I have more insight and direction…but for now…that is what it is”

So, go over to Labor of Love and give her some blog love!

My wedding dress

Ok, this is really a post for the girls. Not that I think many guys read my blog.

Do you ever look at pictures from your wedding or your bridal portraits and just wish you could wear your wedding dress again? I am not talking about fitting into your dress, but getting to wear it and not have people think you are strange. Gosh I love my wedding dress.

I almost wish I could just wear it around. I did that once with my prom dress. I really liked my prom dress, and knew that I would not have another occasion to wear it again. So one day I pulled it out of my closet and wore it around the house. I even cooked pancakes in it.

I know this is just rambling, but I don’t care. I wish there were special occasions where I could wear my dress again. Here is a slide show that is an ode to my dress (except I think an ode is a song, but I felt like it fit).

Two new blogs

I have two dear friends who have just created their own blogs. I am so excited for them!

The first I want to introduce you to is Karen. Her blog is called Labor of Love. There is reasoning behind the name. She is a Doula in training. I can not think of a better career for her. She is so great and so encouraging! Go check her out and give her some blog love!

The second is Brittany. She LOVES to take pictures. And she is so good at it. Her angle on it is she thinks everyone should have the chance to have pictures of memories in their life taken, without having to pay a fortune. Go check out her new blog: BGW Photography.

Sugar Crash

I just ate a Zero candy bar and two pieces of cake. I can feel the sugar crash coming. Man I need to eat healthier!

Adopting older children

I have stated on here many times that I am drawn to adoption. I am drawn to people who are in need, especially children. I am also drawn to the unwanted or problem. So, that makes me drawn to older children who need to be adopted. They are passed over so often for so many reasons. This makes me want to make them apart of my family even more. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that some are called to each area of needs. I do not think poorly of people who do not adopt the children that I feel drawn to adopt. I know that no one else in this world is like me, and I do not expect for you to think like me as well.

I have been reading up on the topic and here is an article I found. I have underlined the parts that really caught my eye.

Older Kids Who Are Adopted Defy Statistics

(CBS) There are more than 130,000 children waiting to be adopted in America.

On Tuesday, CBS airs “A Home for the Holidays,” a special highlighting adoption.

On Tuesday morning, The Early Show national correspondent Hattie Kauffman took a look at the kids who have the toughest time getting adopted: older children.

Raymond is one of the extremely lucky ones. He was adopted at the “old” age of 10.

In his short life, Raymond has seen plenty of hell. He says when he was 4 years old, his father raped him and abused his brothers and sister.

“He kept on beating us up, making us do all these painful things,” Raymond says.

Gayle Parker was a foster mother who never expected to adopt. But she was willing to take a leap of faith.

“They asked me, ‘Would you be willing to adopt?’ And I’m like, ‘Whoa,’” Parker says. “I thought [Raymond] was going home and I said, ‘Yeah,’ because I’d fallen in love with him already.”

Raymond is grateful for Parker’s decision and says, “If she would have never adopted me, I would have probably been in another home saying: ‘Lord, get me out of this world.’”

Any older child who finds a home defies the statistics.

“After you’re [2 years old] in America, it’s very tough to get adopted out of the foster care system,” says Child Share’s Joanne Feldmeth. “After you’re [5 years old], it’s extremely difficult. And after you’re 8, 10 or 12, it’s almost impossible.”

Adoptive parents shy away from older kids because the children often have psychological wounds that need healing. Experts say counseling is a must.

“She’s also helped me out in a lot of ways,” Raymond says of Parker. “We’re still in counseling. At different ages, different issues reoccur.”

It may be frightening for parents to adopt an older child, but from Raymond’s experience, it’s the kids who are terrified.

“[Children are] always scared,” Raymond says. “They’re saying, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me after this.’”

Phil and Dusty Castro took in siblings, Carla and Luis, when they were 6 and 8 years old.

“One of the most profound needs is to adopt more than one child, a sibling set,” says Feldmeth. “Brothers and sisters lose each other in the system, and that’s part of the pain.”

The Castros received a call to adopt a brother and sister, and they said ‘yes’ even before seeing or talking to them. Four years later, the adoption of Carla and Luis became final.

“I am glad that I got adopted,” Luis says. “They disciplined me and actually gave me rules to follow. Other houses that I’d been to, really didn’t do that.”

The two had been through several foster homes — never knowing if they might be separated.

“I was thinking like it would be scary if I was all by myself and [Luis] left,” Carla says.

Phil Castor says, “A lot of people tell you how lucky the kids are to come to your house, or to have you as parents. Believe me, we’re the lucky ones, the blessed ones, to have them come in our life.”

Christmas is a special time for Parker and Raymond. It was in December, four years ago, that their adoption was final.

“It’s just like a beautiful gift being given to you, getting a new family, being able to have someone who can love you and trust and you do the same to them,” Raymond says.

Parker responds, “It’s been the best thing that’s happened in my life — to adopt him.”

The formal adoption proceeding in court holds significance for older children, marking the day they become a forever family.

“The whole ritual of adoption is part of the healing,” says Feldmeth. “That’s really profound and really important.”

Now that he’s part of the Parker clan, Raymond has a big extended family and finally feels safe.

“If anything ever happens to you or your mom, your whole family will be there right behind you, holding you back up and saying, ‘You’re going to be all right,’” he says. “[Parker's] a wonderful parent.”